Hope, Love, Loyalty

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I am in the dark. It is black. I lack hope. I believe that I am nothing and no-one. I believe that little if anyone cares. I am clinging to it. I find it, in the darkness. I begin to know myself. I feel the sadness, what was once numb, what turned to rage and anger, it is now overwhelming grief. I cannot stand. I lose the ability to use my legs. I find solace in a wise woman who tells me that we humans store grief in our knees. Every bone in my body breaks. I lie in bed and stare up at the horror. I am in the nightmare. Dead bloody children strung up on the walls. I can feel wounds from being beaten near to death. Visions. Are they visions? Are these premonitions or past lives? ___ Before, I was painting. I spent hours upon hours by myself. In the mountains with the trees. In my backyard with my cat. In my house, learning to sweep the floor around the canvases. Somewhere in this whole process I begin to learn that I have a choice. Was it Steve who told me? Did I figure it out on my own? Then, my self appeared. A sliver of light broke through the darkness. I made a decision. I am that choice. Every moment. And thus, I took responsibility for my life and my actions. I began the journey of Hope.

Slowly, the years passed. I moved to an island far from the city. It became quiet. When I first arrived I could not find the people. I took in the peace. I lived with my cat. It was Spring. Many years passed, and I found many people, though many still remained hidden. I walked and breathed and stretched and prayed and swam. I began to find purpose in a few hours of work. I learned to respect myself. My Hope grew and transformed into a beautiful Love. I found music again. A broken dream that I carefully nurtured to life with a friend. I loved many friends. My relationship strengthened. I found Christ. Then, I was assured that I was loved, all of me. No exceptions. I began to learn how to properly share this love with others.

Strain, difficulty, pain, still - was no stranger. It came in, sometimes hard and heavy like a lead blanket. I could see with discernment injustice. I feared for the lives of people who needed help. People, some who I had found, some whom I still had not ever seen, seemed unaware of the suffering and deaths that were all around me. I hoped and prayed and tried to do something. I did do something. I wrote articles for the paper. I tried to start a support group. I began to write and publish my thoughts about my own mental illness. I stopped painting. I left a very non-verbal place where I existed before, and I found words. I soaked in and bathed in these words and they freed me. I wrote a few poems. I still needed to understand something. Was it loyalty to self? Was it loyalty to my partner? Was is loyalty to my animals? Was it loyalty to my sister and her husband and children? Was it loyalty to my parents? What I found was loyalty to blood. When I found this connection, I desperately reached in my heart towards family. I connected with the communal human family. I lost myself. I found myself. I sat in the woods for hours and hours. I discovered connection. I felt unity. In this unity, I devised Loyalty to myself and to my community on a foundational and instinctual level. I became aware, conscious even, of our home planet.

Finding myself in the darkness, discovering the love of God, learning to share this love with others, and then feeling connected to blood not just to the human species, but all species, I became and am still becoming opened. Lights are appearing all around. It is frightening. We shall see to where this path will lead.

Ain Sof…